Sudden Silence
by Bethany Tucker
Summary: Lucas Friar lucked out in life. He had almost everything most kids wanted. But one day, almost all that changed in a blink. He loses everything.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**:

I lucked out in life. I had it all.

My parents loved me and loved each other. I had a best friend and lots of other friends. Popularity was never a struggle for me.

I was perfectly healthy, and had an above average immune system- I never missed a day of school. Ever.

I had good grades, I was star athlete, and co-captain of the debate team.

I had a girlfriend.

I was a good kid and a good student. Not one detention or overdue library book.

I was doing just fine.

But things are different now.

Almost all of that was ripped away from me.

There's a saying, You don't know what you have until it's gone. And it's the truth.

I took my life for granted. I had no struggles, and no worries.

I knew I had a good life, and I appreciated that and gave thanks, but it's easy to take good things for granted when they are all you've ever known.

My sister, parents, best friend and I were coming home from a baseball game. It was great. My parents were proud of me. My sister was teasing me. My best friend and I were teasing her back playfully. We had stopped for ice cream, because it was a tradition to do so when my team won.

It was great, Until...

...until a driver ran a red light.

_Flashback:_

_"Okay guys, what kind of ice cream do y'all want?" My dad asks from the front seat._

_"Chocolate!" My eleven year old sister, Sariah, exclaims._

_"Vanilla," I say, grinning._

_She looks at me, blue eyes wide._

_"How can you eat that?! It's so... PLAIN!" She says, pretending to be disgusted._

_"I can live with that," I reply, chuckling._

_"Ugh," She scoffs, flipping a piece of her honey blonde hair over her shoulder._

_"Would you like any, Billy?" My mom asks my best friend._

_"If it's alright, Mrs. F, I'd like vanilla as well," he answers, looking at Sariah._

_Dad places the order._

_I tug on a strand of Sariah's hair._

_"Hey! Cut it out!" She giggles._

_I put my hands up in mock surrender._

_Dad gets the ice cream cones and hands them to Mom who hands them back._

_"Thanks Mom! Thanks Daddy!" Sariah says, excitedly. She takes a bite of the ice cream._

_"Yeah, thanks Dad. Thank you Mom," I repeat._

_"Thank you Mr. and Mrs. F!" Billy adds._

_"You're welcome, all of you," Dad replies._

_"We're very proud of you, Luke. Your team is doing great!" Mom tells me, smiling._

_I grin broadly at her._

_"Thanks Mom. Yeah, the team is doing awesome. We found a few flaws in Billy's pitching technique and corrected them. Now, he couldn't be doing better!" I exclaim._

_Billy grins at me._

_"And Lucas had some issues batting, but Ryan helped him with his position and-" Billy begins to say._

_"Ugh... Sports..." Sariah interrupts, groaning. She is already halfway done with her cone. _

_"You might wanna slowdown there, Bottomless Pit," I tease her._

_She rolls her eyes and takes a large bite, looking at me pointedly._

_I laugh._

_We drive out of the drive-through and pull into the intersection._

_Everything seems to be in slow motion. My mom is talking to my dad, who is driving, Sariah is giggling at something Billy said._

_I turn my head, grinning at my family's good mood, and look out the window._

_ I see a car barreling straight for us. _

_I don't have time to react. _

_It hits._

_The impact causes me to hit my head hard against the seat and window._

_The door crushes me._

_The rest is a blur._

_End of Flashback._

I find myself surrounded by multiple nurses and doctors.

Their mouths are moving, and their faces look urgent, but... I don't hear the shouts that I'm sure fill the air. In fact, I don't hear anything.

But that is the least of my worries. There isn't a single part of me that doesn't hurt.

The pain in my head is so intense, I feel like it might burst.

My left arm is bent at an awkward angle, and a bone peaks out from the broken bleeding skin.

White dots swarm my vision. I feel dizzy and nauseous.

It feels like my entire being is coated in white hot flame.

There are cuts and scratches all over me.

I begin to feel light headed.

A nurse sticks a needle in my good arm, and I almost immediately feel sluggish, and tired.

My eyelids fall, and I drift into a restless sleep.

**Author's Note: Hi! This is a more serious story I'm starting. It will be a Rucas, fear not. :D. So, my dad is a medic/EMT. He arrives usually first on the scene of a call. He also works at one of our local hospitals. So, I tried to get this as accurate as possible. Sorry if its not. Please review and tell me what you think so far! Thanks!**

**See you soon!**

**Beth T.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Hey everyone! I'm back for now! :D I'm so pleased with the amount of reviews I've gotten! I'd love to double it this time! :) I hope you enjoy this. Thanks for reading and please review!  
**

**Beth**

Three weeks later:

I have to repeat it to myself mentally, because it doesn't feel real yet.

My parents are gone.

Dad's spleen ruptured and he bled out minutes after the crash.

Mom was sitting on the passenger's side and suffered a really bad blow to the head. I'm told she went to the hospital with me but died within an hour from a brain hemorrhage.

Billy is in a coma in the ICU. The doctors don't know when or IF he'll wake up.

Sariah is alright, thank goodness. She has a few scratches, but she was released from the hospital a few hours after the crash.

After I got to the hospital, the doctors had to put me into a coma because of major brain swelling. Imagine going to sleep and waking up 3 weeks later. I have a broken arm, swelling of the brain that's finally shrinking, holes that were drilled in my head to relieve the pressure which, by the way, are not pain free and worst of all, I've lost my hearing completely. I mean, I suppose there could be worse things but right now, its really hard to have perspective. I just can't believe it - I'm being told that I will probably never hear again. They don't know exactly why it's happened but they're sure it had to do with how much swelling there was before they could relieve the pressure.

Finally, there's the whole issue of being an orphan. Do they still call it that? I guess the hospital or the police called Child and Family Services when they realized that our parents were dead. A lady from the state came to the hospital and met Aunt Gwen, who had come to be with us.

She agreed to take custody of us and be our guardian until all this gets sorted out.

Gwen comes to visit me but she seems to be having a hard time relating. I can tell she gets frustrated quickly with me, not being able to hear her. She doesn't have kids and is obviously having a tough enough time from the sudden loss of my mom. They were close. I really don't want to add to the weight she's already carrying and I can tell she doesn't really know what to do. Still, I appreciate her thinking about me and I really hope she can hold it together. I can't imagine the shock she's experiencing.

My girlfriend, Missy has also come to see me, but as soon as she found out I couldn't hear her, she started treating me differently. I don't get it! I mean, I know she's kinda shallow and impatient, but she can't seem to get over herself. She acts like I'm a different person now. I need a friend, someone who understands, someone to confide in. I can already feel a wedge between us and I'm worried that she won't be around long.

Mostly it's Sariah who never leaves my side. She holds my hand, we watch TV, which is weird by the way, without sound. We have long conversations written on a notepad. I think its been good for her to write. She's having a harder time than me and is really looking to me to be her strength. I let her know that I love her, that I'm still here and that somehow, everything is going to be ok. I know she really needs me to be her confident big brother and I just hope I don't let her down. She told me about the funeral and how alone she felt. She told me about all the people who were there, so many of whom tried to console her and just how alone that made her feel.

My doctors tell me, (Or write to me rather) that I'll be back on my feet soon enough. They say if everything keeps up well, I'll be released soon.

I'm not sure how I feel about that... I'm not fixed, and they aren't entirely sure what's wrong with me. And even if I am released, what will I do? I am terrified of going back to school. All those eyes on me... Word of the wreck has spread quickly, I'm told, and I already see enough pitying looks from the nurses and the few friends that have stopped by. And how would I communicate with anyone? I can't expect the teachers to drop everything and write their entire lesson plan on the board, as well as answer any questions I have. It would slow them down and prevent them from helping the rest of the class.

Also, I can hardly focus now, in the dull hospital room I'm in, how can I focus in class? My eyes want to shut, and I find myself nodding off every so often. I'm exhausted. The nightmares that seem to swallow me each night only have been getting worse the more time that goes by. Flashbacks to the crash, nightmares about my parents. Reliving the pain I first felt, the burning feeling ghosts over me, haunting. My head throbs at the memory. I try not to think about it.

The hospital is having me meet with a councilor. Therapy? Is that necessary? They're the medical experts here, and I know that a lot has happened, but I don't want to admit to being weak... I'm not crazy. I'm not a nutcase. I repeat this to myself over and over again. I once heard if you repeat something often enough, it becomes a truth. In all honesty, I guess I'm just a little nervous that after all this, I won't be me anymore. That I'll be this shaky kid, a shell of the person I used to be. I don't wanna be like that. Obviously my definition of normal won't be the same as it once was, after things slow down, but I still want to be as normal as I can be.

Aunt Gwen really wants me to attend the New York School for the Deaf, but I don't know how I feel about that. What about my friends? That would just be another thing added to the never ending list of things I now need to adjust to.

We keep going 'round and 'round, arguing. She says that I need to accept what's happened, and accept that I am deaf. She doesn't understand that as much as I wouldn't catch in normal school, I wouldn't understand there either. I can't sign, I don't know how to communicate with a deaf person. I'm barely coming to terms that I am one now...

These heated discussions usually end with her screaming and cussing, and for once, I'm glad I can't hear it. I mean, what if this is only temporary?Aunt Gwen thinks I'm in denial. Maybe I am. It's one of the stages of grief, right? I am grieving. For my parents, for Billy, for the feeling of normalcy. For my hearing, for the sound of my little sister's laugh, for the sound of my dad coming home after work. I grieve for the sound of my wonderful, hilarious, slightly crazy mother bustling about the kitchen. For every one of my favorite songs. It sounds silly, but I find something I miss everyday. Little things.

I can't help but wonder what my parents would say if they were here. Would they push me like this? However, she is my aunt, and now my guardian, and I respect her. One way or another, something will change. I won't be here forever.

The next step for me is finding out where to start piecing my life back together.

**Author's Note: **

**Review! I'd love to hear your thoughts. I really need something positive right now. :) Check out my good friend Indigo Bowing. Her story, Forgiveness, is one of the best I've read! Perfect for all you hardcore Rucas shippers.  
**

**In other news, I am going to be deleting some of my stories that I'm just not feeling anymore. I apologize for the inconvenience. It's just that I've grown and my writing has too. I look back at some of my writing and cringe. Hope you all understand, but if you don't, I'm sorry. I will be deleting them in a few days. If you'd like the chance to adopt them, you may. I don't have any of the docx anymore, so you would just own whatever is already published. Anyway, the ones up for adoption are:**

**Will You Be My Valentine?**

**Who We Really Are**

**We Are What Happens When Puzzle Pieces Collide**

**The Talent Show**

**Me**

**It's Not Over**

**In Riley's Head**

**Girl Meets Her Twin**

**Girl Meets The Arena**

**Girl Meets Taylor Swift Music**

**A Cliché Cinderella Story**

**If you are interested in adopting, you have three days to PM me and let me know. After three days, I delete everything named here.**

**All my love, **

**Beth**


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